Subject: Science / History

Subject: Science / History

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Astronomy in India, 1784-1876

|9780822966470|Indian scientific achievements in the early twentieth century are well known, with a number of heralded individuals making globally recognized strides in the field of astrophysics. Covering the period from the foundation of the Asiatick Society in 1784 to the establishment of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in 1876, Sen explores the relationship between Indian astronomers and the colonial British. He shows that from the mid-nineteenth century, Indians were not passive receivers of European knowledge, but active participants in modern scientific observational astronomy.| Joydeep Sen|| Science / General Science / History

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Science and Societies in Frankfurt am Main

|9780822966463|The nineteenth century saw science move from being the preserve of a small learned elite to a dominant force which influenced society as a whole. Sakurai presents a study of how scientific societies affected the social and political life of a city. As it did not have a university or a centralized government, Frankfurt am Main is an ideal case study of how scientific associations—funded by private patronage for the good of the local populace—became an important centre for natural history.| Ayako Sakurai| Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century| Science / General Science / History

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Typhoid in Uppingham

|9780822966456|Analysis of a Victorian Town and School in Crisis, 1875–1877| After the Public Heath Acts of 1872 and 1875, British local authorities bore statutory obligations to carry out sanitary improvements. Richardson explores public health strategy and central-local government relations during the mid-nineteenth-century, using the experience of Uppingham, England, as a micro-historical case study. Uppingham is a small (and unusually well-documented) market town which contains a boarding school. Despite legal changes enforcing sanitary reform, the town was hit three times by typhoid in 1875-1876. Richardson examines the conduct of those involved in town and school, the economic dependence of the former…

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The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain

|9780822966449|In the nineteenth century, the British Government spent money measuring the distance between the earth and the sun using observations of the transit of Venus. This book presents a narrative of the two Victorian transit programmes. It draws out their cultural significance and explores the nature of “big science” in late-Victorian Britain.| Jessica Ratcliff| Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century| Science / General Science / History

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Victorian Medicine and Popular Culture

|9780822966432|This collection of essays explores the rise of scientific medicine and its impact on Victorian popular culture. Chapters include an examination of Charles Dickens’s involvement with hospital funding, concerns over milk purity and the theatrical portrayal of drug addiction, plus a whole section devoted to the representation of medicine in crime fiction. This is an interdisciplinary study involving public health, cultural studies, the history of medicine, literature and the theatre, providing new insights into Victorian culture and society.| Louise Penner Tabitha Sparks| Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century| Science / General Science / History

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